Runaway: Prologue
by Mage Melery
Summary: Hey peeps. Melery is having an arranged marriage and doesn't want to. So she takes matters into her own hands. Please R/R


Prologue  
  
Hello kind ppls. This is my first fanfic, pls don't be too brutal. I know this is only the first chapter, but what do you think of another story where Numair and Daine get married? Tell me now, to stop me from writing it if no one likes it.  
PS. Everything in this chapter is Tamora Pierce's, except from Lord Darayn (Mel's father), Marlos and my Melery. If anyone takes the first two, all I'll do is send you mail bombs. If you take Melery, I'll track you down and kill you slowly and painfully mwahahahahaha! On with da story.  
  
"Well, well, well," he paused," allow me to straighten this out. Instead of marrying Marlos, joining the two fiefs together and having beautiful, smart children, you wish to traipse around tortall like a ragamuffin."  
  
I said nothing and he sighed.  
  
"Melery, your marriage is next week. Your are sixteen, allowing you to stay here any longer would cost a great deal. Food, clothes, lessons. As a husband, Marlos will be able to take care of you in a way that I can't. When you marry him, you can go wherever you wish."  
  
"I don't want to marry Marlos!"  
  
He looked surprised. "Why not? You will become Lady of the biggest and strongest fief in Tortall. Jonathon will notice you then, you will get the recognition you deserve. Anyway, the marriage is already set up, even if you didn't want to Marlos and I allowed you to stay single," he sighed, "well, it's too late."  
  
I rose form my knees and gave him a cold look in the eye. "I hope you know that I will try my best nto to get married, and if I did, I would rather die then remain married to a man I didn't love."  
  
With those final words I stormed out of his room, and walked into the garden.  
  
* * * *  
  
I walked past rows of carefully tended rosebushes, and daffodil gardens (I adore daffodils). I came to my favourite old oak tree. --How are we?-- I asked mentally, my hands on the tree's bark.   
  
--Not well.-- he replied in his old, rough voice.  
  
--No? Why not?--  
  
--Two youths climbed over the wall in the dark. They kicked my roots quite painfully.--  
  
--Let me see.-- I spread my magic through his old gnarled body and felt for the signs of pain. --Here, you have a chip taken out of you where one of them kicked you. Did they do any other harm?--  
  
--No, young Melery, they did not harm your father's estate.--  
  
I nodded as I worked on filling the hole. Pale green magic flowed into it, then solidified. --How does that feel?-- I asked, but he was already asleep.  
  
By now, you've probably figured out that I have magic. Well I do, lots of it. And you've probably figured out that I don't use it like others do. Well, some people use their magic in threads, or metals. I have loved trees since I was a young babe. When the village healer tested me for magic, she said that I had a lot of it. As I was learning to use it, she realised that I expressed it through trees. Helping them grow strong, strengthening them against disease, and even figure out which plants are weed.  
  
I wrapped my arms around the lowest limb and pulled myself up to sit on it. I remember how I climbed to the top, where the branches bend and sway with the wind, when I was young. I could see everything up there. I could see the village, and the forrest and even Corus, a grey smudge on the horizon.  
  
I felt so free back then. No one told me I had to do anything. My mother was soft, and let me do much as I wanted. Then she died. My father and I grieved for months, and when we resumed normal life, he was different. Cold, distanced, nothign like the father who put me on his shoulders and let me ride him like a horse, or who finger painted all over my room with me.  
  
The wedding is the most input he has put in my life, since my mother passed away. But it isn't what I want. I will trapped for the rest of my life, with a man twice my age. I will be trapped, like a bird who is trapped in a cage. I can see Corus, but I can't go there, just like the bird can see the sky through the bars in his cage, but he can't go to it. Unless..... what if I ran away?  
  
  



End file.
